has given pastors 15 days to declare their political affiliation, BosNewsLife monitored Monday, June 16.
In a statement, Hungary’s second largest denomination said its Synod recently ruled that "pastors cannot be members of any political party" and warned that if a church leader stays a party member "he has to suspend pastoral service for that period."
The ultimatum comes half a year after Reformed Pastor and Deputy Chairman of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP), Lorant Hegedus Jr., received an 18-month suspended jail term for incitement against the Jewish community.
"Flotsam and jetsam of Galatia have eaten and are eating the country up…" he wrote in MIEP’s newspaper Reveille, ahead of the 2002 elections.
"They’ve come again from the side of the Jordan…to the bank of the Danube (river)…to give Hungarians one more kick," Hegedus said.
"HUNGARIAN STATE"
"So listen Hungarians to the message of thousand years of the Christian Hungarian State, which is the only one to lead us into Life: Exclude them out! If you don’t do it with them, they will do it with you," he added in the controversial article.
The issue of anti- Semitism remains extremely sensitive in Hungary, which was a close ally of Nazi Germany during World War Two. At least 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during that period.
However the father of the pastor, Bishop Lorant Hegedus, has defended his son’s actions, saying he only reacted to other articles that were written against him.
"AGAINST BIBLE"
But the teaching staff of the Reformed Theological University in the town of Debrecen has said the article "was against the mission of the Reformed Church and the Bible," the Reformpress news service reported last year.
In addition to Hegedus Jr. about a dozen other pastors have been involved in MIEP, BosNewsLife learned from church sources.
The party lost all its Parliamentary seats during local elections in April last year, after initial international concern about nationalism and far right developments in the ex-Communist nation of roughly 10 million people.
